Headmaster David Morton, 53, from Gloucester had been on holiday with his wife and sons when they received an emergency alert via text overnight on Thursday instructing them to evacuate.
The family were staying in a house in Petit Piquey, along the peninsula, and were woken up at 03:00 local time (01:00 GMT) by emergency texts and an alert on the property’s landline.
“We got in our car, packed everything up as quickly as we could… and then set off and joined a very long, slow-moving queue of traffic,” he told the BBC.
“Everyone was driving with their lights on, driving very slowly – there was lots of fire service people, ambulances, police on the other side of the road controlling things and we could see several fires in the distance as we drove.”
As they drove past the fire near Lège, Mr Morton described the flames as “enormous”.
“You could see the whole forest was on fire and that really brought it home what a major fire it was.”
He described the evacuation as “well-controlled” with people being “very respectful and sensible”.
“It’s different from seeing it on the television… seeing it blazing out of control despite hundreds and hundreds of firemen and women helping.”
